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  • Monthly Review Essays

About John Ross

John Ross is a senior fellow at Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies, Renmin University of China. He is a winner of the Special Book Award of China—China’s highest state award for foreign writers on China. He was formerly director of economic policy for the mayor of London.
  • Trump / Jinping

    Trump 2.0 and China – the real situation of the U.S. economy

    John Ross

    To then ascertain which policies would be necessary to speed up the U.S. economy it is necessary to analyse the underlying relation between changes in the structure of the U.S. economy and changes in U.S. GDP growth rates.

  • The flag of the People’s Republic of China files at the Embassy of China in Ottawa. Photo from Flickr.

    China’s economy in 2024 continued to far outgrow the U.S.

    John Ross

    China’s GDP growth of 5.0% in 2024 meant it successfully hit its GDP goal of “about 5.0%” for the year. More significantly for China’s strategic economic development, Figure 1 shows that it means its economic growth continues to be ahead of the target discussed at the time of the adoption of the 14th Five Year Plan of doubling GDP between 2020 and 2035.

  • Share of currencies held in global foreign exchange reserves from 1st quarter 1999 to 4th quarter 2023.

    What is the realistic strategy for “de-dollarisation”?

    John Ross

    As there can only be one price standard in any functioning economic system the transition from one price standard to another cannot take place gradually, or in a mixed way, but must take place sharply, and therefore completely in a very short time frame.

  • USA / China Flags (Photo: mamvas.blogspot.com)

    U.S. dooms itself to defeat in peaceful competition with China

    John Ross

    Superficially in the recent period the U.S. has attempted to display two apparently contradictory sides of its policy to China.

  • China Money: Chinese Currency, Rates & Money Exchange

    So-Called “Peak China” Is Simply a Western Campaign for China to Commit Economic Suicide

    John Ross

    Despite the fact that China’s economy continues to far outgrow all major Western economies the Western media is energetically promoting a myth that China’s economy either has or is about to drastically slow down.

  • Xi Jinping speaks at a news conference after the G-20 Summit in Hangzhou in 2016. He formed his faction in the city years earlier.

    China’s economy is still far out growing the U.S. – contrary to Western media “fake news”

    John Ross

    The factual situation is that China’s economy, as it heads into 2024, has far outgrown all other major comparable economies.

  • Visitors watch robotic arms assemble a car during the World Robot Conference in Beijing last week

    The news is full of headlines about ‘China’s economic collapse’ — ignore them

    Originally published: Morning Star Online on August 2023 (more by Morning Star Online)  |

    Once again, the Western media Establishment, and sadly some on the left, are talking up an impending economic disaster in China, when the truth is quite the opposite, argues JOHN ROSS.

  • Thoughts on the Significance of the CPC for the Global Left

    John Ross

    The sheer scale of China’s development has been a world-shaping event.

  • China’s economy has rebounded sharply after declining in the first quarter of 2020 - Bloomberg

    Why China’s socialist economy is more efficient than capitalism

    John Ross

    The difficulty the U.S. faces in its current attempts to damage China’s economy was analysed in detail in the article “The U.S. is trying to persuade China to commit suicide”. Reduced to essentials, the U.S. problem is that it possesses no external economic levers powerful enough to derail China’s economy.

  • “Peak China”

    “Peak China” – a new low in Western attempts to persuade China to commit suicide

    John Ross

    One of the latest covers of the magazine The Economist carries a headline “Peak China”. This, as its name suggests, is a claim that while during the last seven decades China’s has enjoyed a peaceful “rise”, specifically in relation to the U.S., this has now ended. It was the latest of decades long wildly inaccurate predictions regarding China.

  • The First International issue of Wenhua Zongheng is a landmark event for the Global Left

    Originally published: Learning from China on April 2023 (more by Learning from China)  |

    Wenhua Zongheng is a newly launched international publication bringing together articles originally produced in the Mainland China magazine of the same name in Chinese. It is jointly published in English, Spanish and Portuguese, by Wenhua Zongheng, the Tricontinental Institute for Social Research, and Dongsheng—which produces the newsletter News on China.

  • The U.S. is trying to persuade China to commit suicide

    Originally published: Guancha (more by Guancha)

    The U.S. knows from its experience in defeating Germany, Japan, and the “Asian Tigers,” that a decisive way to slow a competitor’s growth rate is to get it to reduce its level of investment, which is what it is now trying to do to China.

  • Consequences and Lessons of the New U.S. Bank Collapses

    John Ross

    The collapse in rapid succession of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank confirms the extremely damaging character of U.S. stimulus policies.

  • Key lessons from the failure of the U.S. and success of China’s economic stimulus programs

    John Ross

    Introduction It is well known that China will continue economic stimulus measures in 2023—the only serious discussion is of what type. To be successful these measures must simultaneously achieve two goals. First, they must adequately respond to China’s short-term situation—that is they must substantially reverse 2022’s economic slowdown. Second, they must aid in achieving the […]

  • (Image by Stock File)

    The U.S. unilateral sanctions against Russia will produce a global food disaster

    Originally published: Pressenza on May 24, 2022 (more by Pressenza)

    “There is really no true solution to the problem of global food security without bringing back the agriculture production of Ukraine and the food and fertilizer production of Russia and Belarus into world markets despite the war.” These blunt words by UN Secretary-General António Guterres accurately describe the present global food crisis.

  • Thick smoke billows from the Azov steel plant on April 20, 2022

    What is propelling the U.S. into increasing international military aggression?

    John Ross

    This article by John Ross (Luo Siyin) was also published in slightly edited form in Guancha as “It’s pointless to count on American ‘kindness’.” Introduction The international escalation of U.S. military aggression over a period of more than two decades is clear. However, even within that framework, the events leading to the Ukraine war represent […]

  • UNDER THREAT: Reduced sea ice due to climate change might cut the polar-bear population by two-thirds by 2050 Photo: Andreas Weith

    COP26: why advanced countries must proportionately make by far the biggest cuts in carbon emissions–factual briefing

    Originally published: Learning from China on October 29, 2021 (more by Learning from China)  |

    Fortunately, the scientific data produced by the IPCC makes it possible to calculate the real changes which are required to combat climate change.

  • China’s Ambassador to Cuba tweets on China’s position on events in Cuba.

    World mobilises against the U.S. on Cuba–including China

    Originally published: Learning from China on August 2021 (more by Learning from China)  |

    Cuba is a small country. But because it became in 1959 the first country in the Western hemisphere to thoroughly break with U.S. domination, and embark on a path of national independence, events concerning Cuba have a geopolitical significance many times greater than its size. Present events show that this continues to be the case.

  • Fidel Castro and Nelson Mandela

    Cuba, China, Latin America and the World

    Originally published: Learning from China on July 26, 2021 by John Ross (more by Learning from China)  |

    Cuba only needs around 30 million syringes to vaccinate its entire population–that is a million dollars. This is a tiny sum for the countries, either together or even individually, which oppose the blockade of Cuba.

  • Xi Jinping

    China pulls itself out of poverty 100 years into its revolution

    Originally published: Internationalist 360° on July 1, 2021 (more by Internationalist 360°)

    On February 25, 2021, China’s President Xi Jinping announced that his country of 1.4 billion people had pulled its people out of poverty as it is defined internationally.

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Money on the Left Episodes

  • Democratic Public Finance
    John Ross

    Billy Saas and Scott Ferguson are joined by Will Beaman to discuss Money on the Left’s framework for what we call “Democratic Public Finance” (DPF). According to this paradigm, money is public credit, a capacious tool for mobilizing everyone’s capacities to meet our needs and build a desirable future.

  • The Activist Humanist w/ Caroline Levine
    John Ross

    We speak with Caroline Levine, Ryan Professor of the Humanities in the Department of Literatures in English at Cornell University, about her important book The Activist Humanist: Form and Method in the Climate Crisis (Princeton University Press, 2023). Building on the theory developed in her award-winning book, Forms: Whole, Rhythm, Hierarchy, Network, Levine’s The Activist […]

  • Democratic Public Finance: A Radical Vision for Mamdani’s New York City
    John Ross

    Summary This document elaborates an emerging economic paradigm that is already latent in Zohran Mamdani’s plans and practices. The paradigm, which we call Democratic Public Finance (DPF), reframes money as an inexhaustible and malleable public institution. According to DPF, money is public credit, a capacious tool for mobilizing everyone’s capacities to meet our needs and […]

See all Money on the Left Episodes

Monthly Review Essays

  • Nikolai Gogol’s Department of Government Efficiency
    Andy Merrifield A 1926 Soviet illustration of a production of Gogol's play The Government Inspector, showing audience members in the foreground, and actors on stage in the background.

    Almost two centuries after its opening night, Gogol’s five-act satirical play The Government Inspector continues to create a stir with every performance, seemingly no matter where. Maybe because corruption and self-serving double-talk aren’t just familiar features of 19th-century Russia, but have become ingrained facets of all systems of government and officialdom, making them recognizable to […]

Lost & Found

  • Strike at the Helm: The First Ministerial Meeting of the New Cycle of the Bolivarian Revolution
    Hugo Chávez Mural of Chávez in Caracas. (Univision)

    On October 7th, 2012, after hearing of his victory as the nation‘s candidate with 56 percent of the vote, President Hugo Chávez Frias announced from a balcony in his hometown that a new cycle was beginning the very next day, October 8th.

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